P.O.D. Hired Katy Perry as Guest Singer Before She Was Famous

Update: P.O.D. have posted about the Katy Perry story going viral via numerous outlets and stated that the term "backup singer" is not accurate, adding that she was invited to participate on their album and had paid her dues prior to joining them on "Goodbye for Now." Check out their posting below:

Relatively unknown singers don't always stay that way. This ended up being the case for a little-known Christian recording artist named Katy Hudson, who had a small part singing on P.O.D.'s 2006 hit "Goodbye for Now." That singer has since sold 11 million albums and has achieved three Guinness World Records under the name Katy Perry.

The connection between P.O.D. and Katy Perry flew under the radar despite the singer becoming a breakout superstar in 2008. More than seven years after Perry turned into a pop phenom with "I Kissed a Girl," the video of P.O.D.'s "Goodbye for Now" started making the rounds on the internet this week. Perry even performed with the band on The Tonight Show.

P.O.D. frontman Sonny Sandoval spoke about working with Katy Perry in a 2012 interview with Songfacts. "When we did that song "Goodbye for Now," we're like, you know what would be cool is if we just got a cool female vocal," Sonny recalls. "And he's [producer Glen Ballard] like, 'I got just the perfect person.' And here comes little Katy Perry. She's a little studio rat, she'd just come around, and such a sweet girl. You could tell she came from a good family, and just wanted to show the Jesus tattoo on her wrist, and she was like, 'I think I saw you guys in a youth rally so many years ago.' I'm like, 'That's so cool.' But here she was in Hollywood trying to do her thing and make her career."

Sonny continues, "We're good friends with her, she'd hang out all the time. She did Jay Leno with us and a couple of other TV shows, and we'd always see her in and out of Hollywood just networking and stuff. And who'd have ever guessed she'd be one of the biggest pop stars in the world right now?"

Check out Katy Perry performing with P.O.D. on The Tonight Show in the clip above, and get a closer look as she appears toward the end of the band's video for "Goodbye For Now" posted below.

P.O.D. are out on tour with Insane Clown Posse this fall. Check out the dates here. And be sure to pick up P.O.D.'s new album, The Awakening, on iTunes.